This book covers research on the financing of compulsory education in rural China and provides a highly informative read for readers who are interested in the issue of financing compulsory education in poor areas. Basing on data collected from field studies in 12 counties in 4 provinces around China, this book presents the current status of a new mechanism launched by the Chinese government in 2005 order to ensure funding for compulsory education in the relatively poor rural areas. This mechanism is conceived as a milestone in Chinese compulsory education history, marking the establishment of a government sponsoring model for compulsory education in rural China. Through comparative study, the research finds that the new mechanism not only lightens peasant families' economic burden for having their kids receiving compulsory education, but also breaks the bottleneck of restricting funding for rural compulsory education. The research then also identifies the difficulties and challenges for future improvement.